The Cognitive Style of Decision Making Narrations

1TheCognitiveStyleofDecisionMakingNarrations:INDIVIDUALINVARIANCEANDCOGNITIVEAUTOMATAAlainFinkelandIsabelleTellierLIFAC(Laboratoired’InformatiqueFondamentaleetAppliquéedeCachan)ENSdeCachan61avenueduPrésidentWilson94235CachanCedexFRANCETel:(1)-47-40-24-04Fax:[phone]E-mail:[e-mail]@lifac.ens-cachan.fr2___________________________________________________________________________ApartialpreliminaryversionofthispaperhasbeenpresentedattheFourthInternationalColloquiumonCognitiveScience(ICCS95)whichtookplaceinDonostia-SanSebastian,(Spain),May3-6,1995andwillbepublishedinTheCognitiveLevel,Endres-Niggemeyer(Ed.),DuisburgLAUDseriesofCognitiveLinguisticsin1996.SomeofthemainideasofthispaperhavealsobeenpresentedbythesecondauthorattheFrenchSecondColloquiumofYoungResearchersinCognitiveScience,Giens(France),June7-9,1996.TheCognitiveStyleofDecisionMakingNarrations:INDIVIDUALINVARIANCEANDCOGNITIVEAUTOMATA3ABSTRACTThisarticleproposesanewmodelfortheanalysisoftexts,particularlyadaptedtothestudyofverbalizations.Themodelhasbeenbuilttocharacterizetheinvariancebetweentextswrittenbythesameauthor.Itincludestwolevels:-attheenunciativelevel,lexicalandsyntacticalregularitiesintheexpressionsofanidenticalintentionarerepresentedby«enunciativepatterns»;-atthecognitivelevel,theglobalorganizationofdiscoursesistakenintoaccountandcommonpointsbetweenvariousverbalizationsofasametaskarecapturedin«cognitivepatterns».«Cognitiveautomata»aredefinedtosum-upallinformationcollected.Theyprovideaformalapproachofwhatlanguagetellsusabouttheonethattellsit.41.INTRODUCTIONTheusualviewpointincomputationallinguisticsandformalsemanticsconsidersnaturallanguageasacommunicationtool,asacodeusedfortheexchangeofinformation.Unfortunately,naturallanguagesaredefective,fullofexceptionsandambiguities.So,someresearchersinsemanticstrytodefineauniversalandperfectcode(forexamplealogicalone)capableoftranslatingthesenseofeveryotherlanguage.But,ascognitivelinguistsargue(Langacker87,Lakoff87),suchanapproachisareducingone.Naturallanguagesaretheproductsofalongevolution.Theyareadaptedtothespecialneedsofhumanbeings,notonlyforcommunicationpurposesbutalsofortheexpressionofpersonalfeelingsorintimatedeliberations.Thankstotheinnumerablewaysofsayingthesamemeaning,eachspeakerisfreetomakechoices.Thesystematicanalysisofpersonalchoices,leadingtothestudyofpersonalinvarianceisthecenterofthispaper.Insemantics,theobjectivemeaningispreferredtothepersonalwaytoexpressit.Theoriesofsenserefermeaningstostatesoftheworld.Theapproachadvocatedherefocusesonthecontraryonthestructureofenunciationandrefersittostatesofthemindofthespeaker.Theparadoxicalgoalreachedisthedefinitionofauniversalandformalsymboliclanguageabletodescribeindividualregularitiesintheproductionofnaturallanguagesentencesandleadingtoaprecisedefinitionofthenotionofstyle.Aparticularlyinterestingapplicationofthemodelproposedisthestudyoftheverbalizationofcognitivetasks.Inthesetexts,theplanunderlyingthebehaviorisinferredfromlinguisticstructures(Hamburger&Crain87).So,fromtheanalysisoftexts,therepresentationbuiltallows5toreconstitutetheirconditionsofproductions.Thetaskchosenforthispurposeisthedecisionmaking.Incognitivepsychology,everytaskperformedbythemindisanalyzedinsub-tasksexchangingintermediaryrepresentations.Forexample,theprocessofunderstandingandproducingpropositionsinnaturallanguagecanberepresented(inanoversimplifiedversion)bythediagramoffig.1.Inthisfigure,dynamicprocessesareincludedinrectangleswhilestaticdataappearinovals.Thearrowssymbolizetheflowofinformation.Thepurposeofcomputerscientistsisgenerallytosimulatethecognitiveprocessstudiedbyadaptedsoftware(Johnson-Laird89).Theflowofinformationcirculatinginthissoftwarefollowstheonepostulatedinthepsychologicalmodel.Ourapproachisradicallydifferent,aswegoagainstthetideofinformation:fromseveralproductionsbythesameindividual(thisiswhytwo«newsentences»ovalsarerepresentedinfig.1),wewanttoinfer(orabduct)generalcharacteristicsofthesynthesisprocessofthisindividual.Thecorresponding«rectangle»inboldistheplacewhereindividualchoicesareperformed.Itispostulatedthatsomeofthepropertiesofthisprocessareindependentofotherinternalrepresentations:theindividualinvarianceshouldberecognizedwhateveristhesemanticcontentofthesentencesproduced.So,thesurfacestructureoflanguagewillbepreferredtoitsdeepstructure.Thisisthemaindifferencebetweentheworkpresentedhereandplaninferences(Cohen&Perrault79,Allen&Perrault80,Pollack90)wherepartofthesynthesisprocessisalsoreconstitutedbutonlyforunderstandingpurposes.memoryinferences6newsentencessentencesinanalysisinternalsynthesisnaturallanguageprocessrepresentationprocessnewsentencesHUMANMINDFig.1.Simplifiedschemaoftheprocessofunderstanding/producingnaturallanguage.Likein(GroszandSidner86)and(Daniel&al.92),twolevelsofanalysis,correspondingtotwolevelsofregularities,ofstyle,aretobedistinguished.Linguisticpatterns,first,areindependentofthekindoftextconsidered.Theyaredefinedatthepropositional(orenunciative)level.Atthislevel,themodeldescribeshowintentionsareex